Quotes About Growth

of different wild flowers and ferns grow.

slow at first … just a very gradual inching upwards … up, up, up … inch by inch … getting taller and taller … about an inch every few

I IS ONLY AN EIGHT YEAR OLD LITTLE BOY BUT I IS GROWING A SPLENDID BUSHY BEARD AND ALL THE OTHER BOYS IS JALOUS.

Times change. God doesn't, but times do. We learn and grow, and the world around us shifts, and the Christian faith is alive only when it is listening, morphing, innovating, letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus and embracing whatever will help us be more and more the people God wants us to be.

To make it really clear and simple, let's call this movement across history we see in passages like the ones we just looked at from Exodus and Deuteronomy clicks. What we see is God meeting people at the click they're at, and then drawing them forward. When they're at F, God calls them to G. When we're at L, God calls us to M. And if we're way back there at A, God meets us way back there at A and does what God always does: invites us forward to B.

It's important to embrace several truths about yourself and those around you, beginning with this one: who you AREN'T isn't interesting.

When we don't throw ourselves completely into it and we hold back our best efforts because of what happened in the past, we are letting the past decide the future.

How we respond to what happens to us - especially the painful, excruciating things that we never wanted and we have no control over - is a creative act.

He writes to his friends in Ephesus: I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. When people ask you what the Bible is about, do you answer: It's about becoming more enlightened? Because that's how Paul puts it.

People aren't static; they're dynamic—endlessly complex and capable of tremendous surprise and change.

But it's in that disappointment, in that confusion, in that pain—the pain that comes from things not going how I wanted them to—that I find the same thing happening, again and again. I come to the end of myself, to the end of my power, the end of my strength, the end of my understanding, only to find, in that place of powerlessness, a strength and peace that weren't there before.

In those moments when the two of you see things differently, you can hold on to your view, defending it and protecting it and arguing for its superiority, or you can allow your perspective to be broadened, enriched, expanded, and deepened.

The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination.

Great marriages have an ease about them, a back-and-forth nonreactive, nondefensive, open, and ongoing flow in which you never stop talking and figuring it out together.

Wherever you find truth, wherever you discover something new, affirm it, embrace it, enjoy it.

When you create space for another to thrive, it always unleashes new energies.

We're all endlessly figuring it out because Spirit keeps doing something new. We can fight this, resist this, dig in our heels, wish things were the way they used to be, or we can embrace it. We can choose to see it with fear and frustration, or we can see it as thrilling and invigorating. Organizations can keep trying to relive their glory days, wishing things were like they were when they started.

Your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress. Knowing your ikigai, then, takes patience and insight, and courage, and honesty.

When you get married you're starting a conversation that never ends

You dance with the Bible, but you also interrogate it. You challenge it, question it, poke it, probe it. You let it get under your skin. We read it, and we let it read us, and then we turn the gem, again, and again, and again, seeing something new over and over and over again . . .

When so much gets left behind, you discover that you're fine. You've got a little fear, like a fly buzzing around your head, but you're fine. You're also free. What a gift.

And if you keep telling people who they are, who their best selves are, if you keep reminding them of their true identity, there's a good chance they'll figure out what to

When you are both intentional about moving toward the other in love, over time you build up tremendous reserves of love and grace and goodwill. Love - with spark and substance and sacrifice all together - is a cumulative phenomenon. It builds on itself, it gains a head of steam, it grows in depth and breadth and intensity. This propels you into an entirely different way of relating to each other - another kind of life altogether.

We are always in the endless process of figuring out our ikigai. Your ikigai is a web of work and family and play and how you spend your time, what you give your energies to, what you say "yes" to, what you say "no" to, what new challenges you take on, things that come your way that you never wanted or planned for or know what to do with— your ikigai is a work in progress because you are a work in progress.